Process of treating ore.



No. 786,570. PATENTED APR. 4, 1905.

. B. KELLY & A. MUNSON.

PROCESS OF TREATING ORE. APPLIOATION rum) uov.4, 1904.

4 EHEETS-BHEEI' 1.

WITNESSES:

No. 786,570. PATENTED APR. 4, 1905.. E. KELLY & A. MUNS'ON.

PROCESS OF TREATING ORE.

APPLIOATION nun) NOV. 4, 1904.

4 SHEETS-SHEET 2.

E. KELLY 6: A. MUNSON.

PROUESS 0F TREATING ORE.

APPLICATION FILED NOVA, 1904.

PATENTED APR. 4, 1905.'

4 SHEETS-SHEET 3.

ATTORNEYS" No. 786,570. 3 PATENTED' APR. 4, 1905 E. KELLY, & A. MUNSON.

PROCESS OF TREATING ORB.

APPLICATION FILED NOV. 4, 19044 4 SHEETS-SHEET 4.

- I l I l INVENTORS, 52 z ATTORNEYS UNITED STATES Patented April 4, 1905.

PATENT OFFICE.

NEW JERSEY, ASSIGNORS TO JOSEPH WHART ON,

PHI A, PENNSYLVANIA.

OF PHILADEL- PROCESS OF TREATING ORE.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 786,570, dated April 4, 1905. Application filed November 4,1904. Serial No. 231,327.

To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that we, EDWARD KELLY, residing in Dover, and AUGUSTUS MpNsoN, residing in Hibernia, county of Mo ris, and State of New Jersey, citizens of the United States, have invented certain new and useful improvements in Processes of Treating Ore; and we do declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, such as will enable, others skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same, reference being bad to the accompanying drawings, and to characters of reference marked thereon, which form a part of this specification.

In the art of separating ores it is usual to employ a means for drying out the ore, and

thereby rid it of much of the moisture that comes with it from the mine. At the present time the whole bulk of ore, or at least of the metal-bearing portion thereof, is treated to the drying process without regard to the fact that a considerable portion carries a relatively insignificant quantity of moisture so far as the subsequent treatment of the ore is concerned and not suflicient to take into account.

Our invention relates tothe art of separating ores bearing magnetic substances by the use of magnetic separators; and it consists in a process of treating such ores whereby the drying-out step is eliminated 'so far as those bodies of ore are concerned wherein the percentage of moistureis inappreciable.

We will describe our process with reference to the system of separating ores, which is illustrated in the accompanying drawings, wherein- Figure 1 is a view in side elevation; Fig. 2,

a plan view showing the main portion of the system; Fig. 3-, a plan view of a rock-bin and its accessory mechanism, which elements are whatis eliminated from Fig. 2; Fig. 4, a View of the system looking in the direction of the arrows in Figs. 1 and 2, the elements shown in Fig. 3 being in this view again eliminated; and Fig. 5, a front view of what is seen in Fig. 3.

a in the drawings is an ore-bin from which 7 the ore is discharged through a chute I; to a ore as will not pass this screen is returned by 35 a chute It to reducing-rolls 1. from which, re-

duced, it is precipitated into the pit 6 through the other fork of the chute (Z to be again taken up by the elevator f 4 to the screen 9. From the screen the ore is dropped onto a magnetic separator j, which is of such magnetic strength as to' separate out as heads all ore having magnetite in a percentage high enough to be commercially worth retaining and eliminate or cast off as tails into a chute k the remainder, which is precipitated onto a belt rock-conveyer Z, to be thereby carried to the rock-bin, as hereinafter described. which is retained by separator jfalls onto an inclined screen or grizzly m1. Such of the ore as passes through this grizzly falls into an elevator 11., made up of a flexible series of buckets, and is thereby raised and then precipitated onto a chute 9', from which it falls into a drier .5, having inclined staggered walls 2, on which the ore successivelydrops until it reaches a chute u at the bottom thereof, whereby it is directed to the buckets of an elevator .12. l/Vhat does not pass the grizzly falls onto a magnetic separator 0. At this point the critical separation is made, for this separator, being of less strength than the separator j,,is only capable of retaining or'holding such bodies of ore as have magnetite in a percentage higher than that predetermined as giving to the ore the character of commercially-pure magnetite. What is held or retained as heads by this separator is discharged .by a chute onto an orcconveyer q, whereby and by other mechanism hereinafter to be described it is carried to the ore-bin. What is rejected by separator 0 as tails falls onto rolls '0 for still finer crushing, and upon passing these rolls it is precipitated by a chute w into the buckets of elevator :1 where it will intermingle with the ore which issues frpm chute u of the drier. The ore The ore discharged from the top of elevator 00 falls by a chute 2 onto a magnetic separator 1. Separator l. divides out such ore having magnetite in a predetermined quantity as heads from the remainder as tails, the heads being dropped by a chute 2 onto the ore-conveyer q and the tails being precipitated onto crushingrolls 3. The tails, crushed, fall into a pit 4, to be taken up therefrom by an elevator 5 and discharged through a chute 6 into a rotary screen 7. What passes through this screen is precipitated onto a magnetic separator 8, the heads from which are chuted by a chute 9 onto the ore-conveyor r and the tails by achute 10 onto the rock-conveyer What is rejected by the screen is passed by a chute 10' back to rolls 3 to be recrushed and dropped to pit 4 and up elevator 5 to chute 6 and thence to screen 7 and through the latter to separator 8.

From the ore-conveyer q the ore is taken by another conveyer 11 and then by an elevator 12 to a rotary screen 13, which separates the ore into two sizes, depositing one size in one part of a bin 14 and the other size in another part of said bin. From the rock-conveyer the rock or gangue is taken up by a coveyer 15 and an elevator 16 and deposited in a rotary screen 17, graduated in mesh according to the difi'erent sizes into which it may be desired to divide the rock and adapted to deposit the thus-separated material in different bins 18.

In the drawings are shown various means for driving the separators, screen, elevators, and conveyers. Such means not being pertinent to the present invention it is unnecessary to describe them herein. It may be understood also that suitable and well-known means may be provided for supplying heat to the drier a.

With a view to the foregoing it will be seen that according to our process the ore is first brought to the separator j reduced to a predetermined size. What is rejected by this separator, which has a relatively high amperage, is discarded as rock or tails. The heads from this separator are next subjected to the sizing screen or grizzly m, the ore which passes therethrough being so small that the moisture carried thereby is appreciable and must be gotten rid of by drying and is therefore conveyed to and passed through the drier. What is rejected by screen m passes next to separator 0, which separator being of considerably less strength than separator j divides out the ore having magnetite in considerable quantities from the rest. The heads from this separator being merchantable are taken immediately to the ore-bin. The tails bear consid erable magnetite and are passed direct to rolls 'v and thence to chute 10, where they join the product from the drier, both passing up elevator .r to chute z to separator 1. The heads from this separator go to conveyer q and the tails to rolls 3 for recrushing and then to pit 4:, from whence they are taken up by elevator 5 to chute 6 and chuted onto the rotary screen 7. The lines from this screen are discharged onto the separator 8, where the magnetite is separated out from the rock, the coarse being returned to the rolls 3 and crushed down to such a fineness that they will pass the screen 7, whereupon they are returned to said screen. The foregoing steps embody the essential features of our process. After leaving the drier the ore may be again crushed and subjected to the action of magnetic separators and screens until the quantity of magnetite in the tails from the ultimate separator becomes less than it is deemed worth while to attempt to save.

Having thus fully described our invention, what we claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

l. The process of treating ore bearing magnetic substance which consists in first separating ore of a given size from ore, or fines, of a less size, drying out the ore of less size, subjecting the ore of larger size to the action of a magnetic separator having a given strength whereby to separate out, as heads, all ore having a given percentage of magnetite from that, as tails, having less, and then reducing the said tails and subjecting them, reduced, and the fines, to further magnetic separation, sub stantially as described.

2. The process of treating ore bearing magnetic substance which consists in first subjecting the ore to a magnetic separator having a given strength whereby to separate out all ore having magnetic substance in material quantity from the remainder, then separating the larger heads from this separator from the smaller heads, or fines, dryingout the smaller heads, subjecting the larger heads to the action of a magnetic separator having less strength than said firstnamed separator whereby to separate out, as heads, all ore having a given percentage of magnetic substance from that, as tails, having less, and then reducing the said tails and subjecting them, reduced, and the fines, to further magnetic separation, substantially as described.

In testimony that we claim the foregoing we have hereunto set our hands this 27th day of October, 1904.

EDWARD KELLY. AUGUSTUS MUNSON.

Witnesses:

WM. 1). BELL, ALFRED (JrAR'rNER. 

